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San Zhi Pod City Eerie Decay

Doomed Futuristic Homes Left to Rot in Beauty

These abandoned flying saucer-style holiday homes built for US military officers in Taiwan left to rot are built on burial grounds…

Sanzhi Pod City in Taiwan was designed as a holiday resort for US officers

Space age homes built in 1978 on top of a burial ground for Dutch soldiers

Several deaths during construction including suicides and accidents

Pods were abandoned and demolished to transform site into new resort,

Desolate, shattered, warped and stained, this abandoned series of Smartie-coloured pod homes paints a bleak picture.The flats, known as Sanzhi Pod City, were built in New Taipei City, Taiwan and designed to be part of a holiday resort.They were built in 1978 as a vacation destination for US military officers deployed to the Far East and wealthy Taiwanese. According to locals, a burial ground for Dutch soldiers lies beneath the startling designs. History surrounding the sad structures is even stranger. The buildings were abandoned in 1980 after investment losses by developers Hung Kuo Group and a number of bizarre deaths, including several suicides and car accidents during construction. Gem, a real estate administrator from the Philippines, said: ”As an avid documenter of man-made landscape, I found these pod houses very cool. The colours, the retro futuristic style, whoever designed and built these had a lot of balls.”

According to locals a burial ground for Dutch soldiers lies underneath the buildings and the site is haunted

”As to their demise, people give me different stories. Apparently, these retro futuristic building styles were popular at that time, but the price was so high that they failed to sell most of the units. I guess the developer went broke and that’s why they lay in absolute ruin for years. Maybe the era was all wrong, the target market was all wrong, and the grand experiment failed, but they were still intriguing to look at.”

All shots were taken in 2008 by photographer Gem Urdaneta, 33, a couple of years before the pods were demolished by the Taipei government.

Sanzhi Pod City was built in New Taipei City, Taiwan, in 1978 and designed to be a futuristic holiday resortTaipei City in Taiwan where the site was built but later demolished to make way for a new water parkA real estate administrator from the Philippines says the prices were too high and they failed to sellBizarre deaths, including several suicides and car accidents occured during the construction